Don’t ask me why I’m feeling angry at artist packaging by the music industry.  I’m just an angry young man.  Well, I used to be young.  I have a lot of respect now for Questlove, especially after seeing this clip.  The meat of the clip is at 4:48.

If this clip makes you mad, you’ll understand what kind of mood I’m in.

To really get your blood pressure up, read this: http://www.cosellout.com/?p=6

Paul and Storm like movies.  Paul and Storm like Randy Newman.  Paul and Storm agree that ANY movie can be made better with a catchy Randy Newman Theme song.

Survey the damage here:

A great article from Hypebot reminds us that sites like Myspace and Ticketmaster have their own interests at heart.  And this includes keeping records of your fans and turning them into saleable marketing lists.  Your fan data is valuable and each one is a potential customer (for someone else);  -never forget this!

Read it HERE.

Great post, Bruce!  Keep up the good work!

And it’s not my fault.

I barely have time to deal with the pinball machine I teach in.

Really.

VIsit it here.

Guitar bloggers seem to be about the coolest guys on the internet. I’m constantly on Guitarflame or Pribek.net and now Ovidiu tells us that there’s a new site to check out:

There are links on Ovidiu’s site of even more members of this hog-wild guitar cyberfraternity.  A lot of good folks have taken the time to write/notate/record a lot of great information and you should take advantage of this fact.

If you’re still uninspired, then check out Ukulelehunt.com;  there’s a great new post about the five steps to becoming a legendary blues uke player.

He’s got a new book out.  You’ll save $2 if you buy today.  

Yes, Virginia, you can play slide on a Uke. I know you want to.

Visit http://www.morecowbell.dj/ and upload any song.

Then add more cowbell. And Christopher Walken.

Amazing!
(thanks to listenerd)

This is funny, even out of context:

 http://pribek.net/2008/09/07/god-is-a-song-plugger/#comment-6974

Jack-”I appreciate you taking time to see me God”.

God-”I see all”.

Jack-”Uhmmm…well…as you know, I have this great new ballad. It would be perfect for Jessica Simpson”.

God places the hand lettered, mastered demo in to the portable CD player sitting amidst the stacks of hand lettered, mastered demo CDs, on top of his His mahogany desk, presses play and closes his eyes. After fifteen seconds, barely making it through the intro and well before the first hook, God abruptly presses stop and says in a tone that is serious yet somehow conveys empathy in the face of failure and says; “I’m not feeling it”.

 

In other news,  I found this crazy band:

Does it remind anyone of the  ”Dani California” video  from the RHCP?

Here’s the news of the week:

My IP must be blocking Jack Pribek’s site ’cause I can’t get it at home without firing up the laptop and stealing my neighbor’s wireless signal.  Jack, you’re making me do unethical things to read your blog. 

If you’re wondering where all the posts have been going, take a look at the theory, aural skills and audio principles blogs I started this Fall.  I’m trying to make this technology educationally productive, so if you’re thinking that my main site has been neglected a bit,  you’re probably right.

DM Mobile blog has new studio pix up!

Protooler continues to inspire and teach great tips!  Where does he get all this time to figure things out?  I can’t even keep my office clean…

Guitarflame is talking Music Theory!  Ovidiu is not as mean as his post suggests.  Go there and learn some real-world stuff.

Song FU #2 Round #2 challenge is up:

Your challenge is to choose a famous inventor and craft a song proposing a “dance craze” based on either the inventor or one of his/her most well known inventions. For an idea of what we’re looking for, here’s a song proposing the ill-fated “Lurch”…

Thanks to everyone who voted for Paul and Storm.  Your check is in the mail.

See what I’m fired up about?  This is a very creative way to hone your songwriting skills.  Think about the team mixing contests on the Womb boards (mixerman.net);  –this is great stuff!!  Taking tests on “The Craft of Lyric Writing” is not in the same ballpark!

You are in control of your own education!  In my class, I try to build a supportive environment that protects egos and encourages experimentation.  While these Internet contests are not for the faint-of-heart, they may well be the future “sorting-machine” type of education that is missing from many curriculi and that helped create our past generations of winners.

Now, how can I convince you that you’re good enough to be a winner?  That’s tough, but Louis Schmier is one of those people I visit for inspiration.  In a recent blog post, he shared this poem;

We can see dandelions as a weed that invades the pristine beauty of our gardens.  Or, we can see it as a beautiful flower or a fluffy white ball to wish upon or as a source of nourishing food and drink.

We can see a mud puddle and see only dirty shoes, soiled clothes, and stained carpets.  Or, we can see it as a pool to stomp in, splash around in, and have fun.

We can feel a wind and worry about how it will muss our hair or toss leaves on our manicured lawns.  Or, we can close our eyes, let it massage our face, and imagine we’re soaring on an updraft like an eagle.

We can see a rain storm and see only that we will be drenched, depressed by the grayness, and that the warm rays of the sun will disappear.   Or, we can sing and play in the rain as if it was a water fountain, realize the raindrops are nourishing our gardens, and think warmly of the sun that still shines above the gray clouds.

and then Louis added:

Now, just replace “dandelion” and “mud puddle” with “student.” /…/  Seeing the good side or being able to discover and savor things to be grateful for, doesn’t reduce or erase the inconveniences or discomforts or headaches or disappointments. But, it can change dramatically how we choose to deal with them and what impact they will have on our ability to persist, persevere, and feel accomplished, satisfied, fulfilled, and happy.

Thank God for people like Louis.  We love ya, dude!

Make it a good one-

-J

How about a contest to create the best video for Jack Pribek’s new song? Any takers?

This is a flickr-style video I made this weekend for Jack Pribek’s “Market Street” (available at www.pribek.net). It’s nothing fancy, just a few random pics I pulled from the Creative Commons search at Flickr. If you’ve got Windows Movie Maker or IMovie, you could do much better than this. If you’re up to the challenge, post a link to yours in the comments section.

Things are rockin’ back at the ol’ Ivy-covered hall… and my office is almost 50% organized (A daunting task, for those of you in-the-know…)!

This semester I’ll be adding Theory and Aural Skills pages to the blog;  I’m hoping this will be less confusing than starting 2 additional blogs, but for you old-timers, it means you’ll have to sift through some occasional posts about building fundamental skills.  Relax.  It’ll be good for you!

Syllabi are on the way and I should have my class schedule ironed out tomorrow.  I’m expecting everyone to have the first chapters in our texts read… so log off and get busy!

Make it a good day!

P.S.   If you’ve missed my blogrolls, I have a tiny tidbit;  Joel Falconer’s excellent post on Songwriter resources.  Thanks to Oliver Chesler’s Wire-to-the-ear for this jewel!

http://audiotuts.com/resources/50-great-lyric-writing-resources/

Music has always been an inspiration to many, so it’s no surprise when a restaurant named Kumas (in Chicago) decided to create their headbanging line of hamburgers based on famous metal bands.  (Metalsucks via Listenerd)

Here’s a sampling:

BLACK SABBATH –Blackening Spice, Chili, Pepper Jack, Red Onion

IRON MAIDEN –Avocado, Cherry Peppers, Pepper Jack, Chipotle Mayo

SLAYER –Pile of fries topped with a ½ lb. Burger, Chili, Cherry Peppers, Andouille, Onions, Jack Cheese, and Anger

LED ZEPPELIN –Pulled Pork, Bacon, Cheddar, Pickles

METALLICA –Buffalo Sauce, Bacon, Bleu Cheese Dressing

JUDAS PRIEST –Bacon, Bleu Cheese Dressing with Apples, Walnuts, and dried cranberries

MOTORHEAD –Goat Cheese, Kalamata Olives, Oregano, Tzatziki, Onion, Tomato

MASTODON –BBQ Sauce, Cheddar, Bacon, Frizzled Onions

MAYHEM –Sliced Jalapenos, Pancetta, Pepper Jack, Gardinera Mayo

PLAGUE BRINGER –Roasted Garlic Mayo, Tortilla Strips, Chicago CO-OP hot sauce, Fresh Garlic, Pepper Jack, Sliced Jalapenos

LAIR OF THE MINOTAUR –Caramelized Onions, Pancetta, Brie, Bourbon Soaked Pears

 

Mmmmmm….can I get fries with that?

If you’re taking a break and looking for entertainment, please hop over to the voting for Round I of the Masters of Song Fu competition.   Vote for the best song submitted by the 3 masters.  I’ll let you decide which song is best**.

**if you can’t decide, take my advice and vote for Paul and Storm because they are the ultimate masters of “Song Fu”, IMHO.

For you budding guitar players out there, check out Jack Pribek’s post on harmonic cross-relationships, soloing and stress relief:

“You’ve got to be in to go out and you’ve got to be out to go in”

Protooler did a nice “Preview Review” on Digidesign’s Transfuser.  Be sure to read it BEFORE you try the preview!!!

“Transducer – First Look at the Preview”

WiretotheEar satisfies those low bass cravings with a great little post about

“How to place a Subwoofer in your Studio”

Finally,  things can get a little weird for 3 crazy musicians on the road. (Source -J Coulton) Take a bit of portable technology and some downtime and you end up with this:

Thanks to Coolfer for this tidbit: 

In our music industry survey courses we often refer to “Happy Birthday to You” as being copyrighted when speaking about copyright law.  Well, guess what?  Your teachers could be wrong.  According to a paper by Robert Brauneis, the copyright is:

almost certainly no longer under copyright, due to a lack of evidence about who wrote the words; defective copyright notice; and a failure to file a proper renewal application.

Brauneis, Robert, “Copyright and the World’s Most Popular Song” (March 14, 2008). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1111624

Additionally, Robert has a website with evidence pertaining to the “Happy Birthday” song.

Here’s an example of a possible musical source dating back to 1875:  A Happy New Year’s Song.

MP3

http://docs.law.gwu.edu/facweb/rbrauneis/happybirthday/scores/A_Happy_New_Year.mp3

PDF Score:

http://docs.law.gwu.edu/facweb/rbrauneis/happybirthday/scores/A_Happy_New_Year.pdf

Excellent work by Mr. Brauneis!  I’ll sing at  your next birthday! 

Now if I can just get all a refund of those royalties and sync license fees I’ve paid over the years…

There’s a new widget in town and it’s above the blogroll on the left.  I’ve been checking out ReverbNation.com and finally got something to embed on edublogs.org.  I found a few friends there (Lynam, Monte, Jack Pribek and Justin)  the rest is a bit random. 

 If it plays without you activating it, please leave a comment… and I’ll disconnect it. 

It seems like everyone is posting scenery pics today;  –I’m stuck at work and I’m jealous! 

Peace,

-j

Finals start tomorrow and the last possible turn-in date is Tuesday, May 6th at 4 PM.

Don’t risk it!  Email is an unreliable choice to turn in final projects.  Burn film projects to DVD and make a copy for me.  Audio projects can remain on the audio drives in studio A and B.  Make copies for yourself if you want it in your portfolio later.  If circumstances beyond your control prevent you from making the deadline, go see the department chair and get an OK for an incomplete grade.  Then leave me a voice mail or put a note in my mailbox. 

In other news,  the Branson newspaper is featuring Mr. Pribek in a series of articles.  It’s a good read and you can listen to my Pribek CD in my office. 

Article #1

Article #2

Article #3 

Jack’s blog is here:

For those of you who have Protools, there are two good articles on inexpensive plugins on the Protooler blog.  Read “Mixing on a Budget – part I”   and “Mixing on a Budget -part II”.

Friday is officially “No Pants Day”;  I will not be participating at school and if you’re my student, I urge you not to participate either. (via Listenerd)

Jonathan Coulton has posted a 20 minute Flip video (condensed) of his trip to Seattle and Portland for gigs w/ Paul and Storm.  It’s wacky and a fairly entertaining way to waste 20 minutes when you should be studying. 

You can read about Marilyn Manson’s sex change on Industrial Addiction (or not).

Metal Martyr hopes you think twice before you get a tattoo (check out the link to badtattoos.com).

Sheplaysmusic lists the Top 10 Bad Girls of Music.

The coolest place in the whole world to intern is still looking for interns.  Why doesn’t anyone want to learn a trade anymore?

Finally,  juried exams start tomorrow;  –if you haven’t already spoken with me about accompanying your jury, then you are too late.  It’s not that I can’t do it.  It’s better that you learned a lesson about planning ahead.

Peace, folks.  Good luck on exams!

-J

Pants with built-in mouse and keyboard? (Vous Pensez) 

The inside story of a couple who make great microphones;  The Pelosi Family.  (NPR)

Missouri considers re-banning concert ticket resales after the November Hannah Montana ticket scalping fiasco.  (coolfer)

A new condo’s parking garage threatens the historic echo chambers built beneath Capitol Record’s Tower in L.A. (Jack Pribek’s Blog).  If you visit, check out track # 6 on his new album.  I love backup singers!

The BBC has just launched an interesting Sound Index of all the top 1000 artists from the web.  Guess it beats the Nielsen scans… According to MillionMusic, the new service is “based upon a 6-hourly scan of MySpace, iTunes, Google, Bebo, Last.fm and YouTube.” (Via MillionMusic).

An afternoon panel at the Leadership Music Digital Summit in Nashville concluded that indie artists still need the big labels to achieve big successes.  According to MusicRow, when the moderator “asked the panelists to name an artist who has achieved even mid-level success without a record deal, they were stumped.”

GuitarFlame ponders Aerosmith’s Joe Perry’s guitar solos.  Add your voice to the mix.

Some of Seth’s smallest posts are the best.  Read Better.

WiretotheEar has a great video from mastering engineer Rob Babicz.

Check our Martin Atkin’s video from SXSW;  –NSFW ’cause he calls it like he sees it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bt9mGOmn74A

He has a brilliant book on touring (which I recommend) and also posted a Youtube video about his 5-pointed Star Inward Crush Touring Strategy.

Finally,  Hometracked examines 10 Myths about Normalization  (he’s talking about audio, not teenagers!).

I love equipment shootouts;  –especially when the underdog makes a great showing.  Today’s shootout comes from Audio Geek Zine where Jon has matched a GLS #S-57 against 2 Shure mics and an AT-2020.  I thought the S-57 did a fine job and at $30 Bucks a mic, you sure can’t beat the price!  More info at Speakerrepair.com.

Shootout!!

Wanna give away buttons and stickers at your band’s next gig?  WiretotheEar has a great post linking lots of good resources!  And they’re not as expensive as I thought…  Could be a good cottage industry for some entrepreneurial-minded student…

Ever wish you could play the intro to Stairway to Heaven on a uke?  Check out the tab and video at Ukehunt.

Guitarflame.com wants you to put a Floyd Rose on your Telecaster.  I think it’d be cool, especially if you’d get rid of that twangy single-coil bridge pickup and put a real high output humbucker on that baby! (–note the sarcasm in my italics!).

Musicthing asks the musical question:  “Can you sing Death Metal without losing your voice?”.   The endoscopic video examples are a bit disturbing…so beware.

NewMusicStrategies is convinced that you’ll get radio airplay if you write a song with the word “radio” in it.   Also check out his post about selling your music online  (some good comments on that one, too).

DMMobileStudio has been dealing with plumbing, vendors and inspectors in his last few posts about his studio building adventures.  Upcoming duties include air handling and isolation transformers.  Hey, I’m excited.

Coolfer reports that Boosey & Hawkes has been sold to a company owned by a Dutch pension fund-owned group called Imagem Music.  Imagem owns a few rock and pop catalogs acquired from Universal.  Classical musicians everywhere owe a great debt of gratitude to B&H for years of wonderful publishing.  RIP, Boosey. 

 Update- Sarah at B&H says “/…/don’t worry — there’s no need to bury us. Our ownership doesn’t affect our staffing, catalogs, or operations: we’re a privately traded company so it’s totally normal for us to change hands every once in a while. We look forward to many many more years of service in the industry! “   Thanks Sarah, but tell your friends at B&H to be careful; –you can’t trust many of those rock and pop publishers!

UPDATE -   I left off the wildest link of all;  Cooking Shrimp with Coolio.  Mea Culpa!  (Warning –some of his language [like his music] is not safe for children or other coworkers)

Blog buddies Pribek and GuitarFlame have bestowed a nice award on this blog:

I’m very humbled and honored by this award;  the first ever for my blog!  I have a speech saved up from when I submitted an album for Grammy nomination last year, but I didn’t get to use it (until now).  First, I must say that without the aid and support of my colleagues, family, friends, students, and family pets.  I’d like to thank the Recording Academy, all my music teachers throughout the years,  Nika Aldrich at Sweetwater Sound, my Protools teachers throughout the years, my doctoral committee at Auburn,  my dog Hunter,…

Seriously,  thanks guys!   In respect for the tradition, I now nominate 10 fellow bloggers who have helped me in many ways.

1.  Guitar Flame

2. Pribek

3.  DM Mobile Studio Blog 

4.  The Listenerd

5.  Protooler

6.  WiretotheEar

7.   RandomThoughts

8.  Seth Godin’s Blog

9. DragonLady’s Blog  (The wife’s blog;  –need I say more?)

10. AudioGeekZine

 Enjoy!

(Reliable Drum Cat photo borrowed from www.conservativecat.com)

I’m looking for a word to describe those musicians who will show up and do their best even when they’re deathly ill, tired, or troubled in other ways.  Over at GuitarFlame, they’re talking about performers who don’t show up at gigs, rehearsals, etc… and it made me think that I’ve been lucky to have dealt with very few of these types over my years of playing.  I’m seriously trying to remember if I EVER missed a gig.  Seriously.

Don’t think I’m some kind of superman, but I posted recently about my struggle with the flu.  Last night I played a 3 hour rehearsal (from Hell) after working a particularly exhausting 10 hour day(but that’s normal ).  I’ve traveled many, many miles and endured incredibly bad venues (including many churches!) and low (or no) pay but if I told someone I would play, then that’s it;  –I’m going to play. 

OK –mea culpa;  a confession.  Over my years of accompanying (15+ years at TROY), I now recall that there was one senior recital that I missed because my sister-in-law passed away and we had to go back to Indiana.  The player kept the piece on the program and one of my piano-playing students tried to cover for me, but I missed it;  I couldn’t make it.  I still feel guilty about it because that recitalist was depending on me.

So far this post has only been about ME.  I still need to find a word to describe that overwhelming sense of responsibility to the task that a professional musician has.  So help me out:

1.  What’s the word?

2.  What’s your story?  Ever made it to a gig under the most adverse conditions?  Played even when you felt like you were going to die? 

3.  Do you need to confess a missed gig?  If so, post your gig sin here and I’ll see if I can get it absolved.

4.  Do you have a word that adequately describes a musician who thinks nothing of skipping out of an obligation?  (Let’s keep it relatively clean, folks;  I have impressionable students who read this blog!)

 Peace,

J 

Folks, if you’ve never seen one of these before, you should try to appreciate the people who are dedicated to keeping the “old school” way of producing music alive.  Read Wiretotheear’s post here:

Then visit the owner’s site for more information.

I intended to get this post up earlier.  Too many people demanded too many things of me.  Tomorrow I may just shave my head and do what I want.

Here’s the news:

Musings on why Starbucks is failing in it’s bid to be a music distributor.  (Coolfer)

 See the Iso booth construction at DM Mobile Studio.

 Protooler shares:

             1.  Reactions to Digidesign’s “New Thinking”

             2.  A quick look at all the audio consoles at the Frankfurt musicfair.

             3.  A video of the SSL Matrix console (I want one!).

             4.  Videodiary of the Frankfurt music fair (part 2 -wrap-up).

JamLoop unveils its first ever Used Musical Instrument Search Engine!  (woohoo!) (harmony central)  I did a search for a Kalimba and most of my results were from ebay.  (booo!)

Faltering Warner Music Group is paying its CEO $1 million dollars for base pay for 5 MORE YEARS!  Warner stock has fallen 68% in the past year (according to Music Row).   Why can’t record label execs do their jobs for less pay?  (Hypebot).

9 mistakes to avoid when making your next CD (Musicthinktank via New Music Strategies).

From Cnet news;  the US House of Representatives is threatening to block financial aid to universities who don’t police P2P music sharing on their networks. (Ad-Supported Music).

Guitar flame echos one of the points I try to make when teaching aspiring music industry students:  The Guitar Is Not The Most Important Track in a recording.   See there, guys–I keep telling you this…

On Seth Godin’s blog:

                          1.  Watch this video before you buy your next ad. (funny)

                          2.  If you’re remarkable, you shouldn’t bother with a resume. (thoughtful)

PTNewbie shares a tutorial on how to use REASON(software) in Pro Tools.

Finally, KilledbytheVideoStar shares a cool review on the up-and-coming band Vampire Weekend.  Hmmm.  Ovidiu, it sounds to me like these guys should have read your post before entering the recording studio.  Also, if anyone can tell me if they filmed this really slowly and then sped it up, please do.  If this is some sort of video plugin, I want to know about it.

Alternate link = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XC2mqcMMGQ

Have a great week!

j

How many record executives does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Why not get the answer from the horse’s mouth?

You can read this funny tidbit via Seth’s Blog.

It’s actually an excerpt from what appears to be a very humorous book by a Mr. Dan Kennedy on Permission Marketing.

I don’t want to mess it up by condensing/paraphrasing it. 

It’s the time of year I always dread;  the income tax deadline looms ahead.  If you’re facing the same deadline I am, I’ve gleaned a few choice tidbits from the web to get you in the mood (after the break).  Students, I haven’t left you out;  –there are tax tips ahead for you, too!

Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes when you glance at your inbox, you don’t really pay much attention to all those ads from vendors trying to get your attention with their product.  Such was the case a couple of days ago when I trashed an email offering me special pricing on a new Celemony edition.  I use Celemony for pitch, timing and vowel correction on vocal tracks because you can easily sculpt the track and still have the element of believability (unlike some other plugins).  Today when I read WiretotheEar’s blog post and watched the video I realized I’d made a huge mistake in deleting that email.

Folks, this is going to revolutionize recording and remixing.  Imagine after listening to your track you notice that your B string was kinda out of tune.  No problem.  You can fix it.  What if you’re playing chords?  Still no problem.

My mouth drops open here;  prior to DNA there has not been a successful way to reach inside a polyphonic track (it’s got a bunch of notes happening at once) and fix things.  Heck, now you can even rearrange the music (change the chords, timing and everything).  

I can even use stock loops and rearrange them into something totally different.  I’ll be a virtual Dr. Frankenstein of audio! 

Can you imagine the possibilities of someday being able to reach inside a classic song (Insert your favorite song here) and totally change its feel, key, modality, or even mute the vocal track and replace it with your own!  The future is somehow both disturbing and exciting!

Read the rest of this entry »

Music students;  Pribek’s post on improvisation, scales and the Evolving Conversation is a must read.  Get your thinking caps on!

Max @dmmobile.com has the flu but still managed to get some new pics up of his new recording studio construction.

From Daily Swarm via Earfarm;  Warner Music Group staff is team building by playing weekly RockBand tournaments.  

Bands and Managers on Music 2.0;  “Where’s the money?”  (Hypebot).

Guitarflame.com shares funny tips for writing that blues song. (original source: littlerockjams.com).

Seth Godin’s blog muses on the decline of the hobby store.   Is the record store next?

Protooler has the word on the street that SSL may be coming out with an analog board that I can afford (*crosses fingers).

WiretotheEar tells us to go get our FREE subscription to Tape-op Magazine!

Have a good weekend!

I’m on Spring Break, so posting may increase or decline, who knows?

-j

Here’s a new site I just added to my blogroll;  www.pribek.net .

Jack Pribek is a songwriter/guitarist w/ 30 years of real experience.  He’s just posted an excellent “guitar lesson” and he’s taken the time to do the tab for examples of chromatic patterns and their uses in improvisation (and I hope there will be more lessons like this!). 

He has an interesting story that is still being written;  –a story of someone who is devoted to music and is realizing his potential in the face of an incredible challenge.  Read his “About” section or this post and you’ll see what I mean.

I’m honored to be the guest blogger today at www.guitarflame.com!  So stop by and check it out;  it’s a cool place to hang out!

Here’s my guest blogpost!

Promedia’s blog tells us how to get started with the Elastic Time feature in Pro Tools 7.4.

 Protooler announces the new Digidesign update to Pro Tools 7.4 cs3 is now available and lists all the bug fixes.

The Good Musician blog calls it quits;  B5 Media is looking for a new blogger to take his place.  Goodbye, Arjun,  it’s sad to see you go.

From BigBlue Lounge,  Tarekith’s guide to the mixdown process.

And here’s a site to teach you the Circle of 4ths/5ths.

From the Womb Boards,  Here is What Is - a DVD documentary about Daniel Lanois recording his music in recording studios from Toronto to Morocco.  Here’s what his site says about the project: (I’ve already ordered my copy!)

For those of you who might not know, the film is a camera following me around over the course of a year, in and out of recording studios documenting once and for all the way it really happens. We start in Toronto and end in Morocco.
The film will be showing in select cities and the dvd will be available soon.

If you’re not familiar with the Womb Boards’ CAPE Project, here’s some tunes from the latest REVEAL to peak your interest.

Peace-

j

Audiogeekzine.com inspired me to echo his post about Before The Music Dies,  one of the greatest documentary reflections on the current state of the music industry.  It reveals some of the dirt that goes on behind the scenes that the general public may not realize.  The clip below illustrates how the industry can “create” a pop star from someone who has NO MUSICAL TALENT!  The Eryikah Badu quotes are priceless, but not necessarily safe for work.

The other movie is a documentary tribute to one of the most amazing recording engineers ever to have walked the planet;  Tom Dowd.   Not only was he one of the atomic scientists that worked on the Manhattan Project, but he pioneered stereo recording and built one of the first eight-track recording consoles. The synoposis of Tom Dowd and the Language of music reads:

A long-time engineer and producer for Atlantic Record, Tom Dowd was responsible for some of the most important R&B, rock, and jazz records ever made. In his own words, Tom Dowd relates how he went from working on the Manhattan Project, while still high school age, to recording some of the greatest music ever made over the last half of the 20th Century.

This guy produced some of the greatest recordings of all time and I learned so much from just watching him interact with the musicians.  His discography reads like the Who’s Who of 20th Century Popular Music.  It reminds me just how important it is to get the right team behind the musicians.  Tom was the best.  He passed away on Oct. 27th, 2002.  He was one of the most important pioneers of our industry and we owe a huge debt of gratitude for showing us how recording should be done. 

Youtube clip follows the break…

Read the rest of this entry »

Honk if you love Barry Manilow?  No, just “honk” the real thing;  -hit the horn and hear Barry crooning “I Write The Songs”. 

Just imagine hearing the sweet strains of Snoop Dog’s latest album (Ego Trippin’) the next time your sluggish acceleration irritates the guy driving behind you…  Or maybe you’ll hear some “Seek and Destroy” (Metallica) as the blue-haired little old lady passes your worn-out jalopy, leaving you behind in a cloud of dust. 

 Car horns that play music?   Yes, any MP3 is game if you purchase one of these $300 units from Horntones.   I can just imagine the RIAA suing drivers to collect royalties every time someone honks  with their Amy Winehouse “Rehab” honker… OR load in your favorite movie lines;  -the possibilities are endless!

  More info here:

(Thanks Earfarm)

This Youtube video demonstrates how our ears use volume differences between them to create the "effect" of location.  (this example works best with headphones, but you can still get the idea...)

Try the other 4 neat ear tricks here:   (thanks, Musicthing)

Bloody Red Moon Alert!    (An eclipse pic from my house).

Top things to bring with you for a recording gig. (fun list from Matt at AudioGeekZine).

More progress on the studio at Gemini Pines (new pics are up!)  (DMMobile Studio).

Earfarm blew my mind with this post about Prokofiev’s Alexandre Nevsky score (earliest music video).  This movie sorta helped start the Cold War (from the Russian side);  –I need to show it to my classes! (Actually, I own a copy!).

MediaFuturist’s new book is out…go buy Music 2.0!

It was only a matter of time before someone offered a sample library of the Balinese Gamelan orchestra (thanks, Harmony Central).

What on earth are you ever going to do with all those old vinyl records in your closet?  Our Digital Music has a suggestion.   Analog=Art.

GuitarFlame has suggestions for increasing your blog’s traffic (hey,  I should probably go re-read that one!). 

Paul and Storm are out to win Jonathan Coulton’s T-Shirt Design Contest.  (That’s not how the Godfather of Geek Rock really looks, Paul…)

ProtoolsTraining Blog reminds us how to set up time-saving templates.

Moozek has discovered nifty new ProTools keyboard covers!

That’s about it, folks…  Happy Wednesday!

I downloaded a new Remixing program today after reading about it on Jonathan Savage’s blog.   I’m a hip dude;  I can remix!

Features:

1.  It’s free.

2.  It has beatmapping. (i.e. tempo stretching without pitch changes.)  And it has rudimentary Beat Detection (estimation).

3.   Support for MIDI devices (basic MIDI controllers), Serato timecode  (for scratch tracking)  and Hercules DJ control surfaces.

4.  Open Source, so you have a community of developers/tweakers out there to expand the product.

Results:

I started the program and immediately chose the wrong directory for my music files!   Luckily, I could change this under preferences…

Adding music was easy;  I pulled songs from the desktop to the center media list and could easily select which player I wanted to load the file onto.  So far, so good.   Hit the play button;  –it plays!  Tug on the balance slider;  –Fatal Error!

Ok…I’ll try again…maybe it will work this time….oops! (CRASH!).

You might have some success with this freeware;  I didn’t (I was using my office PC (running Windows XP, sp2).

I hate to give this a bad rating, though…it showed a lot of promise! 

Anyone else wanna try it?

Congress passes a higher ed funding bill that requires colleges & universities to deal with the illegal downloading on campuses. (webware via future of music blog).

John Mellencamp demands John McCain stop using his songs for campaign events. (WTOP via future of music blog).

Gerd Leonhard (MediaFuturist Blog) recommends a book predicting what the future holds for the music industry.

Hometracked shares some Vocal EQ Tips.

Protooler shares a link where you can get PDF files to make your own ProTools shortcut stickers.

Guitarflame asks “where do you find your music?”.

Listenerd shares a link to a company that has used pitch to MIDI conversion to create a version of Guitar Hero that is usable with real guitars  Plus, it also offers a teaching mode to help you learn new songs.  Cool!

Music Row reports that Warner Music Group’s head is under investigation by French authorities for insider trading.  Bad, Edgar, Bad!

Musicthing has posted the strangest accordian equipment review ever. (I’ve never seen an accordian do anything like that!).

Seth Godin’s post on deciding what to make could speak to musicians.  Rewrite it yourself only with a focus on making music. 

Good Musician shares tips on how to get young children interested in playing an instrument.

I’m not originally an Erykah Badu fan, but after seeing her on Before the Music Dies (a great video!!), I had to catch this review of her new music video on Killed by the Video Star’s site.  As I watched it, my grins turned to guffaws…she’s probably one of the most intelligent artists out there today!  I won’t give away the cool stuff, but it’s a real trip down memory lane in the spirit of RHCP’s Dani California vid.

Pic by Zikinf

Studio trickery uncovered;  –film at 11.

After a 24-hr lag in finding or thinking of anything to post, I stumbled upon this goodie:

Hometrack’s Top 10 worst Auto-tune abuses.  (see original post for offender list).

http://www.hometracked.com/mp3/hometracked-autotune-abuse.mp3

It’s amazing the number of folks who can’t sing on pitch that go on to become entertainers.  Auto-tune keeps ‘em in business.  Too bad they sound like mutant replicants from the planet Zeno.

Auto-tune is the Antares plug-in that allows engineers to correct bad singing.  In the hands of an amateur, the results can be bad.  My old protools trainer, Shawn Simpson was a great vocal tuner and I believe he insisted on editing every syllable manually, even though Auto-Tune was available.  I’m still groovin’ on Melodyne (recommended by Shawn) and I try to do things just like my teacher.  Imagine that!

Ars technica reports on a Washington D.C. tech. conference where speaker Cary Sherman (RIAA chief) basically said the Internet should remain free (and ISPs shouldn’t regulate downloads).

 See the report here:

It’s been a crazy week;  can anyone tell?   But I found some great things to share!

Indy Mogul   – the perfect site for anyone interested in starting out in filmmaking or animation using no-nonsense (and low budget) tricks and tips.  These guys are serious;  they just got back from Sundance Film Festival and video blogged a bunch of it!  They also have video tips for how to do special effects(like ripping the beating heart out of a victim “a la Indiana Jones & Temple of Doom”).  I’m sure you can use that soon… (Thanks Audiogeek Zine)

 Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) may soon have to police your downloading habits.  This is due to increased pressure from content owners to control illegal downloading.  If only the RIAA had thought of this sooner… (Thanks, Future of Music Blog).  In the meantime,  the European Courts say that ISPs don’t have to disclose file sharers (via Hypebot);  so if you can’t catch the birds, chop down the tree?

Marc Cohen’s Ad-supported Music Central reacts to the Qtrax fiasco.  Good one, Marc!

Andrew Dubber discusses the boundaries of the new music industry (or lack thereof).  (New Music Strategies).

Guitar Flame shares a video from what has to be the world’s youngest fingerstyle guitar player.  Nice one.

ProMedia reminds us how to use the Xpand! plug-in as a metronome in Pro Tools.

Protooler reviews a free online sound source (did someone say “Free?”) for film, radio and tv sfx.

Wire-to-the-Ear makes me feel 100 years old as he shows y’all how we used to do things.

Didn’t find anything interesting, yet?   Then check out my wife’s latest zombie video review… 

An Urgent Message from NMPA regarding your rights: 

Original source =(http://womb.mixerman.net/showthread.php?t=6404).  Also at: http://nmpa.org/aboutnmpa/presidentscorner.asp .  Bold and Italic emphasis = mine.

On Monday, January 28, the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) begins the hearing that will determine mechanical rates for every songwriter and music publisher in America. It will be the most important rate hearing in the history of the music industry because in addition to setting rates for physical products, rates will be set for the first time ever for digital products such as digital downloads, subscription services and ringtones.

The National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) will be representing the interests of songwriters and music publishers and will be fighting vigorously to protect those interests to ensure that musical compositions are compensated fairly.

On the other side of this fight stands the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Digital Music Association (DiMA). Both the RIAA and DiMA have proposed significant reductions in mechanical royalty rates that would be disastrous for songwriters and music publishers. This is literally a fight for the survival of our industry.

To give you an example of what is at stake, the current rate for physical phonorecords is 9.1 cents. The NMPA is proposing an increase to 12.5 cents per song. The RIAA, however, has proposed slashing the rate to approximately 6 cents a song – a cut of more than one-third the current rate!

For permanent digital downloads, NMPA is proposing a rate of 15 cents per track because the costs involved are much less than for physical products. The RIAA has proposed the outrageous rate of approximately
5 – 5.5 cents per track, and DiMA is proposing even less.

If you find that troubling, it gets worse. For interactive streaming services, which some analysts believe will be the future of the music industry, NMPA is proposing a rate of the greater of 12.5% of revenue, 27.5% of content costs, or a micro-penny calculation based on usage. The RIAA actually proposed that songwriters and music publishers should get the equivalent of .58% of revenue. This isn’t a typo – less than 1%. And DiMA is taking the shocking and offensive position that songwriters’ and music publishers’ mechanical rights should be zero, because DiMA does not believe we have any such rights!

The initial hearing will last four weeks, with the three permanent Copyright Royalty Judges hearing arguments Mondays through Thursdays from 9:30 am – 4:30 pm each day. At the conclusion of the initial hearing, there will be more discovery, followed by a rebuttal hearing in May, and a final decision expected on October 2.

The NMPA will be spending millions dollars in this proceeding to protect the interests of songwriters and music publishers against the much larger record labels and digital media companies. And although we face such an enormous fight, we have an incredible advantage – we represent songwriters, without whom the record labels and digital music services could not exist.

Please forward this to anyone who is involved in the songwriting and music publishing industry.

 We will be sending out regular updates as the CRB progresses to keep you informed. Through your networks, we hope to reach the vast majority of the industry. If you did not receive this directly, and would like to be added to the master NMPA communications list, please send your contact information to Jamie Marotta at jmarotta@nmpa.org.

As always, we appreciate your support of the NMPA which allows us to wage this fight on your behalf.

David M. Israelite
President & CEO
National Music Publishers’ Association
http://nmpa.org/home/index.asp

Earfarm posted this vocal outtake here of David Lee Roth singing “Running with the Devil” .  It’s pretty amusing without the music!

If you liked that, you might also enjoy this outtake here of Smashmouth’s” Days like These”.

Undiscovered footage of Phil Collins recording the drum track for “In the Air Tonight”  (flash required)?  No it’s a commercial, silly.

I’m not a sports fan, and I really rolled my eyes when I discovered that Chunklet had this country ditty labled as “Worst Song” here;  Being an Auburn grad. myself, I’d quickly add that this doesn’t seem to be an officially produced song about Auburn University(at least I sure hope it’s not!!).

Creative loafing has an article about the songwriter who’s started the UGA music business program.

Simon Napier-Bell reflects on the great injustices of the major record labels. (Thanks Media Futurist)

The Listenerd share a cool interactive music video, “Black Mirror” that allows you to mute the multitrack audio (1 = vocals, 2 – drums, 3 – pad, etc…).

Protooler noticed this Strum-Acoustics release:   a virtual acoustic guitar plugin with performance-enhancing voicing/strum algorithms to make any hack keyboard player sound just like a real acoustic guitar player.

How much of the mediocre stuff in your life have you let yourself believe is great?

Seth Godin talks about breaking bad habits: (video link).

Wire to the Ear reminds us that it’s better to start tracking softly to avoid the big “D“.(article is tagged Ableton Live, but applies to Pro Tools, too!)

Make it a good day!

-J

I know how annoying it is to surf over to a potentially wonderful site and find that you have to surrender your email address to register to use it.  Such is the case for Rode University;  the education/marketing effort touted at NAMM by Australia’s #1 microphone maker (thanks Protooler & Harmony Central).   Inside you’ll find 25 well-made videos covering every application for 11 Rode microphone models.  If you’re just getting into recording, it’s a great place to start.

I live about 2 1/2 hours from the Florida beaches, but that doesn’t mean I don’t see an occasional snowfall; –such is the case right now, ’cause they’re forecasting a few flurries(and ice).  The county west of ours is closing ALL roads from 9 pm until 9 am tomorrow.

Old Man Winter hasn’t stopped DM Mobile Studio, but it has slowed him down a bit. 

EarFarm showcases visual artist and songwriter Daniel Johnston.

Future of Music speaks on the future of FCC Licensing and new non-commercial  FM radio stations (*power to the people*).

Harmony Central finally posted a NAMM Highlights video (Day 1 down, 3 more to go?).

Hypebot shares a great video overview of the Creative Commons Licensing (”is this the future of music licensing?”).

Listenerd shares a clip of a beer bottle orchestra (apparently orchestras drink a lot of beer in Australia).

Ad-supported music affirms that mobile phone music downloads cost too much.

Music Gadgets covers Edirol’s new 4-track 24b/192khz portable recorder from Namm’s Winter Market.  This is the big brother to the R-09 that I bought almost a year ago.  Handy things!

MusicThing covers Roland’s new Digital Harpsichord and points to a new music gear blog w/ NAMM show coverage…Wire to the Ear.

Guitar Flame laments a teenager’s first cassette tape purchase.

Paul and Storm discover Storm’s uncanny resemblence to Osama bin Laden’s son.

Good Musician posts a clip featuring MacWorld Expo 2008’s  p%$$ed-off Randy Newman singing about Caesar, the Spanish Inquisition, Malaria and U.S. politicians.

 And finally, Killed by the Video Star features reviews of music videos new and old, including “These boots are made for walking” (original) and the lame sequel.

Hear 2.0 reminds us of the cyclical nature of the music industry. (ad-supported music).

Media futurist predicts a songwriter’s strike due to the failings of the Performing Rights Organizations (PROs).  I believe there’s a good chance he’s right about this; –the industry and the courts still haven’t gotten a good handle on a digital world without borders.

A lot of bloggers are pointing to the end of the record labels.  I read with interest the post about “Digital is more than just the Internet“  from New Music Strategies.  The point is well taken;  –the industry was not prepared for the wide open spaces and changing formats/distribution methods.  Change takes time and the folks who made a living off the status quo were slow to see the handwriting on the wall.  But don’t rule them out yet.

Seth Godin published some new music lessons for the industry to think about. (hypebot, our digital music).

The Digital Rights Management experiment apparently failed, so the labels will have to come up with something new(our digital music).   My bet=look out for  digital watermarks that track the tracks (Listenerd). 

The RIAA is probably not dead. (Mashable via Listenerd).  I know my job continues to change incrementally.  The same can be said for the industry, even though change can be painfully slow (and those who do not change are condemned to fade away).

Finally, we’re all here for a purpose.  Look at Louis’s post and contemplate the future.  What changes do you need to make?

For you plugin-heads;  a free Vintage meter! (RTAS, VST & Direct X).  (thanks to the Womb board).  Plus a list of more FREE RTAS plugs!

Happy Sunday!

Peace,

J

3 observations from the net: 

1.  Sound Quality is down.

Listenerd posted a great article link from RollingStone about MP3 sound quality the other day and I heartily recommend it:

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/17777619/the_death_of_high_fidelity

2.  Compression is up. 

After you’ve read the article, check out Turn Me Up! (dot) org for more info on the subject of loudness wars.

3.  People aren’t really listening to the music anyway!

Finish off your adventure with Collision Detection’s observation on “Why Audiophiles are Dying Off”  (thanks Listenerd).

Garritan is offering a free online Jazz Arranging Course by Chuck Israels! (thanks HarmonyCentral).  It looks cool, if you’ve had at least 1 year of music theory.

Enjoy the best Mashups of 2007 (free download) [thanks to Gerd Leonhard & MediaFuturist.]

Sample tracks include:

07 Lobsterdust // Marley Maiden
Bob Marley VS Iron Maiden
[from the Number of da Boots album, MOTW #27]

08 DJ Zebra // Break Through Love
Doors VS Led Zeppelin
[MOTW #44]

09 El Barto & Liam B // Don’t Dance
Genesis VS David Bowie
[MOTW #40]

Mark Hornsby is starting a new year-long series about recording a song entirely in the box using Pro Tools.  Every month the tracks will be available as a free download at http://recordingmag.com/index.html  (Thanks, Promedia Blog).

Good Musician has started his series of Basic Repertoire posts with the Queen of the Night’s flashy Aria from the Magic Flute.  I didn’t realize there was a “whistle” register in the human voice…I’d always assumed these sopranos were a result of cold war genetic engineering experiments…

Marty Atkins has begun Tour Smart:  The Tour.  Watch for it in a city near you. (Feb. 8th in Bham, AL).

KilledbytheVideoStar has killer reviews of the latest (and not so latest) in music videos.  Good stuff!

 My buddy Stan and Rollin’ in the Hay will be in town at the Double Branch Saloon on Friday Jan. 11. at 10 pm. 

Campus Downloading offers a free DVD to help educate students and stop illegal downloading on your campus.

Music Thing showcases the free Tony-B Flash music game.

New Music Strategies posts its Year in Review of 2007.

Listenerd links to an article from UK about Apple’s upcoming ability to prevent your hearing loss from Ipods and Iphones.

Guitar Flame posts a disturbing Ozzy/Jessica Simpson Christmas video.  Doesn’t Ozzy’s voice sound computerized?  I know some call Kelli Osborne the “Auto-tune Queen”.

Good Musician is scared of child prodigies…

The secret code hidden in the 12 Days of Christmas.

DMMobile has Christmas Studio-building pics… I can’t think of a better Christmas present!  Are you listening, Santa?

I’m off to Mom and Dads’ and 2 Christmas Eve services.

Merry Christmas, everybody!

Peace.

J

Now I’ve seen everything.   A nifty microphone disguised as a ring.

More phantom-power, Honey?

(Thanks, MusicThing!)

This means Clear Channel can start buying newspapers, right?  

Future of Music blog is pretty confident that this is a win for big business.  Perhaps it will be a fresh reinvention of radio and newspapers…like a cell phone edition that calls you up every day, tells you the latest gossip with your favorite song playing in the background while AC Nielsen records your GPS coordinates and bankcard balances.  (Just kidding, AC!) 

Read the rest of this entry »

 thanks to MediaFuturist for brightening my day once again!

Guess what Santa’s bringing the media industry this Christmas?  An affirmation that intellectual property has specific ownership and rights that supercede what some say is a public’s right to free content.  Read more about USB’s acceptance of  DRM checks for video content.  This means that Hollywood and multimedia developers can hope for a brighter future (unless you believe a hack is already being developed).

Read more about USB and DRM here:

What happens if the pirates win? 

  Read about China’s story here: 

(mediafuturist)

There are only 2 days left to vote in Hypebot’s Best Music News Blog poll and my favorite underdog needs your help!  

Vote for Listenerd!

Do it now!

 Where else can you go on the internet to find rockin’ videos of phonographs playing AND a pithy Colbertesque synopsis  of all the music news that’s worth reading?   You certainly won’t find that here…

Promedia blog  teaches Toggling to Pro Tools Toddlers.

Max’s studio is looking good from Ground Zero. (dmstudio)

Ad-supported music says Limewire is on 36% of computers.

Gibson has a reverse flying V guitar on the line. (MusicGadgets).

New Music Strategies looks (or promises to look) at promising new tools.

Good Musician pics 10 Musicians to invite to your College Party.

My wife reviews “I Am Legend”  even though Listenerd has already proven that Will Smith doesn’t use toilet paper…

Our Digital Music names 10 musicians To Invite to your Office Christmas Party.

Why I miss retail….

Read Louis’s story…

Then watch this video

Hypebot found this video somewhere and it makes me want to post a Zappa quote…

Read the rest of this entry »

MusicThing says this Amstrad 100 will eat my protools rig.

Read the rest of this entry »

I never had much respect for the telecaster.  But Ethan’s Tele-vision  music video is a cute little cheese-ball of video editing.  But besides being a great way to spend 10 minutes, there are musical clues hidden within that, if you’ve identified more than anyone else, will earn you $2000 worth of cool valuable pro audio prizes.

BTW, Ethan has a killer page on Acoustic Treatments...

If you have spare time,  of course….

Dr. J & 2 of 3 of his mad elves…

Give yourself some SAX this weekend!

The Grammy Nominations are announced… and my nominee didn’t make it!

Read the rest of this entry »

Source: Netribution  originally taken from Steve Albini’s post (Former Nirvana producer).

Today features tiny but not insignificant pointers toward enlightenment.

1.  Louis’ blog;  -Career as “bed of roses”…written for teachers but applies to everyone.

2.  Trent Reznor’s Remix Project.  Good source for free raw remix tracks (but you have to register w/ email).  If you want these tracks,  have an external hard drive ready….  they’re huge!

Dear Illegal Downloaders,

I found a link to this on Listenerd’s site and it struck a familiar chord with me. I thought I’d write and encourage you to repent of your illegal downloading activity and attempt to make amends by following the advice found here:

P.S.   Te absolvo.

Here’s a short guide to advertising online.   (Million Music Marketing).

Musician’s Notebook offers advice on blogging for bands.

The RIAA may be afraid of targeting Harvard students due to 2 faculty members specifically and the Harvard Law School in general.

New Music Strategies has suggestions/software to help you “Git ‘Er Done”.

peace,

j

From another blog, check out this Radiohead promotion summary post here:

The public no longer respects the duty and role musicians and other artists fulfill in society. They don’t see the need to pay us for our work, just like the industry didn’t when it started ripping us off decades ago.

And that is why out of all Radiohead’s fans, only 38% didn’t steal from the band, and just because they offered the choice doesn’t make it right.

Then I remembered a Jonathan Savage post that you probably missed and thought it would be appropriate here: 

Creativity – in the form of the arts, music and thinking more imaginatively about subjects – are an important part of an all-round education, says the select committee report. But there have been fears that schools, under pressure to focus on academic standards, could be neglecting such areas. And the report by MPs concludes that more should be done to protect these areas of creativity.’

A full  report of their deliberations can be downloaded here.

Creativity gets no respect unless its marketed;  if we continue to give it away, we devalue it.  Conversely, if it is in short supply, there will be high demand.  This is generally described as “law” in the field of economics.  Remember when people give away things at grand openings?  Radiohead is a marketing experiment.  At least I hope that’s all it is. 

Read the rest of this entry »

MusicThing releases Part II of its Christmas Gift List. 

Ladies and Gentlemen; …

20 Non-boring Christmas Gifts for Musicians which cost less than $200.

Guitarists, put down your beer;  –the online universe comes into focus for you!  MusicGadgets reports on a new Blogring just for guitarists.   Get you blogfix or find a new place to grind your axe (pun intended) here:

Guitar Noize | IG Blog | Strat-O-Blogster | Guitar MX | Mad Stratter | Guitarz | Building the Ergonomic Guitar | Guitritus | Musician’s Notebook | GuitarToyBox | IGUITARGOD | Mr. Blues Guy | markmcguigan.com | Acoustic Guitar Player | iFingers Guitar Experience | Play Like a Girl | Electric Guitar Review | Guitar Novice | Truth in Shredding | Thumbrella | Music Ramble | The Soul of Rock and Roll | Guitar Lifestyle | GuitaroJam News | Music Gadgets | The Guitar Channel | The Guitar Resource | Guitar Stuff | Axe Victim | Guitar Flame | Desafinados (spanish)

  Read the rest of this entry »

Are we to get a list every month of universities who allow this downloading/P2P sharing to continue?

I’m wondering who’s on our list? 

From the RIAA site  :

 In the tenth wave of this initiative, the RIAA this week sent letters in the following quantities to 16 schools including: Boston University (40 pre-litigation settlement letters), Brown University (12), Central Michigan University (28), Columbia University (43), Dartmouth College (22), Duke University (27), North Carolina State University (38), Princeton University (10), University of Chicago (14), University of Connecticut (26), University of Maine System (34), University of Nebraska-Lincoln (14), University of Pennsylvania (16), University of Tennessee-Knoxville (32), University of Texas-Austin (50) and Yale University (11).

Future of Music Coalition’s blog has a take on the U.S.  Senate hearings on public performance royalties.

Basically, if a song receives airplay on the traditional radio outlets, the composers/songwriters get paid but the performing artist doesn’t. In the past, everytime the performers’ rights organizations have lobbied congress to repeal the exemption, the National Association of Broadcasters defeats it.

The FMQB quotes NAB chair Steve Newberry:

“I’m trying to find out what’s happening this week, but no luck so far… I’ll keep you posted”What I fail to understand after nearly 30 years in the radio industry is why the recording industry is willing to essentially bite the hand that feeds it. ”

Also from FMQB is this quote from Lyle Lovett:

“When radio plays recorded works, they generate profit for themselves because they attract listeners and advertising dollars. Yet radio has never compensated performers for the value their creative work brings to the radio industry, because the Copyright Act does not protect sound recordings in the same way it protects the underlying songs,” said Lovett. “Let’s face it. No one tunes into a radio station to hear the commercials.”

Can you imagine what radio would be like if the NAB lost this year?

Download (from Gearwire) Malcolm Toft on music technology.

Music Thing’s Top 10 Christmas Music Gadget Gifts (If price is no object).

Cellyspace Beta lets you compose your own ringtones. *UPDATE* It costs to download ringtones or to send messages, but bands who create ringtones for their fans can earn a commission on each one downloaded.

Hypebot ponders the future of DRM-free downloads.

Harmony central reports that a California company called Novatunes will reinvent the album with their upcoming site launch; they will sell only packaged downloads.

MediaFuturist reports that Text is dead; the future is Videoweb Content.

The Good Musician has a curious post seeking comments on a guitar performance by John Williams.

Finally, you higher-ed types out there should read Louis’ thoughts on Educational Lovelessness.

Make it a good day.

-j

Apparently it’s a slow music blog day on the ol’ net, unless you’re apt to become excited over Toilet MP3 players…

I’m waiting for Charles Dye to get here (Stankonia) and just found out the class has been delayed one hour. Looks like there are seven of us and the coffee is brewing in the lounge area, so I’m off to round up a little caffeine…

‘later.

J

From http://rcrdlbl.com/ :

All of our downloads are free and legal, but we’d ask that you not rehost the tracks on your site or use them in any way that might be considered commercial. Since this is an ad-supported venture the best way to support what we’re doing is to visit the site on a regular basis and/or to embed one of our widgets on your blog (you may have noticed the little modules on the right). The whole point behind the widgets is that we want to make it easy to grab any element of the site, from streaming music and tour dates, to photos and videos, and embed it in your own site or on your OS X Dashboard. We’ll be adding compatibility with more platforms soon.

\Thanks to Hypebot\

First build an audience and give up your music for free. When you have an audience, then start thinking about money.

-Gerd Leonhard (Interview with Gerd/Wicked Whammy)

It depends… 

Digital Audio Insider shared an interesting interview from

 Cory Doctorow (Via Kottke.org).  Check this statement out:

 And the ethical reason /for allowing free sharing on the ‘net/ is that the alternative is that we chide, criminalize, sue, damn our readers for doing what readers have always done, which is sharing books they love—only now they’re doing it electronically. You know, there’s no solution that arises from telling people to stop using computers in the way that computers were intended to be used. They’re copying machines. So telling the audience for art, telling 70 million American file-sharers that they’re all crooks, and none of them have the right to due process, none of them have the right to privacy, we need to wire-tap all of them, we need to shut down their network connections without notice in order to preserve the anti-copying business model: that’s a deeply unethical position. It puts us in a world in which we are criminalizing average people for participating in their culture.

So copying is the new culture and the main reason for computers?  Bah!

Gerd Leonhard’s MediaFuturist has a wonderful video interview about the price of freedom on the Internet.  What if your employer fired you because of some comment you made on your facebook page? 

Most importantly,  someone at Dallas Baptist U. is spending too much time playing Guitar Hero…

(thanks, Listenerd).

1.  Invest in a song!  You can own rights to “Friends in Low Places” and many other songs.  (DAI).

2.  Nashville Songwriters Assoc. buys the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville. (coolfer)

3.  Mediafuturist reminds us that the future of Internet is in the phone.

4. Read Hypebot’s interesting theory on the Rise of the Musician Middle Class.

5.  Sound as furniture:

Sound/Chair begins as a sound that is precisely crafted to form the shape of a chair when visualized as a 3-dimensional object using a volume, time, frequency plot. The chair is an exact replica of the soundwave graph. The result is a product with dual existence as both a sound and chair, and a new approach to designing products. (Listenerd).

6. Who’s popular where? – the worldwide music listening map!    (Listenerd).

7.  Ad-Supported Music sheds some light on the Radiohead debate:

…once the novelty of these “name-your-price” schemes wears off, the percentage of people who pay will fall to near zero.

8.  Million Music Marketing reports that ChartU beta has launched.  This allows bands to upload music which is voted upon by listeners and sorted into “Charts”.

9.  The Good Musician tells us why Music Theory is the best.

10.  Jonathan Savage reminds us that Creativity in schools needs more support.

A very nice 3 page article on the birth and state of China’s music market comes from the UK Register via MediaFuturist.  Happy Reading!

Look carefully at the signal path in this picture:  do you know what is getting ‘verb?   What tracks end up with the T-Racks EQ?    An important part of learning to work within the box is the ability to visualize signal flow.   To my students;  –10 Extra Credit points added to a bad test grade if you will take the time to illustrate the signal path via a flowchart and put it in my mailbox before Nov. 9th.

Click on the picture to zoom in.

An interesting article that goes with the picture can be found at the ProMedia blog.  Thanks guys!

My scary contribution=  French Organ Music!  (French music =  downfall of Western Music)  **For some reason, these videos keep becoming unavailable…I’ll keep updating!

Hypebot serves up some Halloween Fun,  complete with the famous Ozzy and Bat video…

Our Digital Music has their own Halloween on the Net list…

Boo!,    Ya’ll….

-J

Many are claiming that Itunes, p2p and the internet have ended the record label’s reign as the controlling force in the market.  I’ll pull my head out of the sand just long enough to comment.

Here are a couple of salient points:

1.  Technology is the culprit and the solution.  The ease of Internet distribution and the hurdles of providing legal protection for intellectual property in a Core2 world has created the dilemma the industry faces.  If the RIAA and the courts solidify the boundaries and technology enables control of distribution, the labels will recover.   Otherwise, control will be the pipe dream Prohibition turned out to be.

Coolfer says:

Americans have given a vote of indifference to music subscription services and have sided with the iPod/iTunes model. Morris obviously needs to find a way to overcome this problem if subscription services — thought by many executives to be labels’ saving grace — are ever to take off. The Morris plan is Read the rest of this entry »

Name your own price for 11 issues and 11 CDs from Paste Magazine.  Thanks to Hypebot.

Thanks to Jonathan Savage’s Blog  for this!

Thanks to Listenerd for making my day!

Coolfer posted an insightful reflection on the emerging model of Manager-Label (if your Manager has $$, this post may be for you!).  Here’s the summary:

The CD still dominates album sales, digital track sales are growing and subscriptions are a bit player. As the CD becomes less and less a driver in popularity, the manager-run-label will become increasingly attractive. When a far greater percentage of artists can circumvent traditional labels without sacrificing sales and visibility, this alternative model can become a game-changer. 

Digital Audio Insider reflects on “giving it away for free” in the newspaper industry vs. the music industry.

Earfarm gives away some emerging artist mp3s (legally) and sums up the CMJ conference.

Gerd’s MediaFuturist has great video from FutureTalks: “Technology vs. Copyright.”  Great video of Ford/Microsoft’s new voice-controlled bluetooth car stereo which interfaces with internet phones and Zune/Ipods.

Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s my “News of the Day”:

Gerd Leonhard’s online book “The End of Control” is up to chapter 4.

Rico has a custom sax giveaway you can register for…

Hypebot finished posting its 100 Free tips to Promoting your Band.

Listenerd’s guitar shredding video is still making me laugh…and below it is the link to 20 Drunk Moments in Pop Music History.

Ad-Supported Music Central tells us :TSL Analysis Shows Unbundling to be Irrelevant (i.e. iTunes selling individual tracks instead of albums hasn’t killed the recording industry).

Million Music Marketing give us Top MySpace Tips From People Who Know  and How to Make Money in Music.

The Good Musician tells us 7 things Good Musicians Do.

And finally,  this nugget from Louis Schmier:

 If any of us academics act as an intellectual superpower, look upon any student as “third world,” and perceive that student to be less than her/himself, then she or he is stealing that student’s two entitlements: her or his birthright of equality and her or his unique potential. We don’t like it when it is done to us by colleagues or administrators; why should we accept doing it to others. I think it has to do with something called the “golden rule.”

If you haven’t seen “A Vision of Students Today”,  it’s a thought-provoking slap in the face that needs to be watched by many of my colleagues in higher ed.  I’ve seen a lot of “teaching” (i.e. full-frontal “read my notes” assault) that is more mind-numbing than provocative and know the complaint.  I wish universities cared more about the classroom environment than grants and publications.  Here’s the vid if you haven’t seen it:

Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks to Million Music Marketing for showing me this (and that Jamiroquoi Moon Buggy is the bomb…):

Check out this company;   they charge $$ to increase the number of track plays and friend requests for your band’s Myspace page.   For $699.00 a month  they guarantee:

Approx 105,000+ plays, 10,000+ Friend Reqs

(3,500+ plays/day) 

for one month and  further promise:

We expose your music to the net and get you those beautiful numbers of 1,000+ MySpace plays per day. You will rise the charts and finally look like a star with the amount of plays. Increase MySpace plays, friends, and visits now!

Attract labels, gig locations, local press, scouts, agents, and other important industry people with these achievements.

I know Myspace is popular for music promotion, but is a good Myspace hit count a higher predictor of success than quality of material and delivery?  There’s a middleman position here waiting to be filled and God bless the young entrepreneur who steps in to serve those acts that don’t have a clue.

It’s amazing to see the different spins concerning the moves by Radiohead, Reznor and Madonna; 

–MediaFuturist sees the end of the world for the labels, but admits:

I think they will indeed need very strong managers, smart advisers, hot branding teams, and cutting-edge service providers to make this work because large financial success is still a question of SCALE.

—Hypebot says kudos to Warner Music Group for the Madonna move, and

shares the leaked EMI “Wake-up” letter to its staff.

 Coolfer nails it, and I quote:

Agents, managers and labels are better equipped to take on the early-stage risk inherent in artist development.

 And Ad-Supported Music Central concludes:

The only new business model with the scale and leverage potential that can replace the loss of recorded music sales is advertising supported music.

MediaFuturist reports on a crunchgear.com post;  –other UK bands are stepping in line to do the Radiohead promotion.  “Pay as you like” seems to be the order of the day.  Man, I wish the auto dealers would try that!

: )

…from the Reznor’s site at www.nin.com

Hello everyone. I’ve waited a LONG time to be able to make the
following announcement: as of right now Nine Inch Nails is a totally
free agent, free of any recording contract with any label. I have
been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the
business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently very
different and it gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a
direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate.
Look for some announcements in the near future regarding 2008.
Exciting times, indeed.

posted by Trent Reznor at 10:45 AM.

From the Billboard music site:

Sources close to the situation say in the short term, Reznor will get busy in the studio working on the follow-up to this year’s “Year Zero,” a process he couldn’t begin until the Interscope deal was complete due to contractual reasons.

I’m predicting Trent’s next CD will be chock full of bright and cheerful tunes with PETA-friendly artwork on on the liner notes.  Like Moby meets the Wiggles.

Someone important is thanking Amazon for finally doing MP3s right.

Thanks to Hypebot for providing this valuable nugget!

More Blogroll stuff:

Check out the AES Wrap-up at Sweetwater

Considering a career in the music business?  Read  “The Good Musician” POV…

Louis Schmier is happy to be alive… (and I’m thankful, too)!

Dr. Savage ponders the ultimate Ph.D. question…

And my wife’s ghost hunt pics are up…

Music Gadgets reports that Sony has a new 2 track (96 khz, 24-bit) and it sure looks sweet!

Earfarm posted a link to this nifty quiz.  I didn’t do so badly (for a classically trained pianist) but some of these albums are so classic they smell funny. 

The first RIAA lawsuit against a peer-to-peer network file trader is over and the single mom now owes the record industry $220,000 for 24 of the 1700+ tracks they allege she was sharing.    Of course, the lawyers get $9,159.00, and the rest is credited against the A&R expense tab for the bands involved.  At least we have a legal reaffirmation that ownership of distribution rights really means something.

  More info here:

Everything you probably didn’t know about this compression format… –and masking!

This article is technical, informative and loaded with great visuals!

If you have a stake in the new music industry, you owe it to yourself to read this…

Earfarm has given me 2 great things to think about today!

1. The new Radiohead album may not be eligible for charting because the outlet doesn’t report sales.

2. Stylus Magazine’s Top 10 list of how to make a better record. (I like #2 and #3 best).

Author and Media Futurist Gerd Leonhard  Releases New Book Online — for Free . 

Weekly chapters of The End of Control now available at www.endofcontrol.com  .

The AES Convention starts this week;  Harmony Central will cover it here.

Listenerd reports that Kanye started a blog.  Kanye West.   Interesting…  See it here.

Ad-Supported Music Central posts interesting commentary on the “new” record industry as defined by Edgar Bronfman, Jr., CEO of Warner Music Group and heir to the Seagram Distilling Company fortune.   Did I mention Edgar never went to college?  I wonder if his kids are still downloading music illegally…

Music Thing found a Dr. Frankenstein guitarmaker…

Our Digital Music says Starbucks starts giving away music with your expresso tomorrow…

Hypebot links a NYTimes blog that claims YahooMusic is entering the throes of restructuring: 

 “People briefed on the changes say Mr. Broady was asked to shrink his staff and that 80 to 100 people from Yahoo Music and other areas were reassigned…”

Yahoo was one of the first music browsing sites I can remember on the Internet.  It’s sad to think we could be losing the old crew…

Gerd’s blog links to an interesting article on “internet obsolescence”.  Anyone remember Friendster?  It was replaced by Myspace…which may be replaced by Secondlife or Facebook…who knows?  My point is that like so many other virtual malls, Yahoo must either connect to the bell curve of demand or be banished to the fringes.  Where does one go to find that magic fashion spot that every virtual artist wants to be in? 

I remember Jane Healy’s book “Endangered Minds” warned us about the internet’s effect on the mind.  After a brief search, I found this quote:

The computer software that’s being rushed into market is training kids to be attention deficit disordered. It’s training them to be impulsive, to have meager finger control because they’re just using a small part of their motor system. These are the hallmarks of attention deficit disorder.

Maybe this explains the market behavior of the internet clique…

and there’s not too much to share.   But I liked this:

Top 5 Places to buy DRM-free Downloads…

 (from the Our Digital Music Site).  TGIF! 

Not only do we get insightful commentary on the new Amazon MP3 store,

we also get:    100 Free & Affordable High & Low Tech Music Promotion Tips 

-  Free and affordable! 

 ”Thank You” for caring enough to create content like that!!

I’m catching up on my reading this weekend and will be adding to the Atlantis Music Conference and Remix Hotel stories soon, but in the meantime, check out-

The Freakanomics guys investigate the future of the music industry  (digital audio insider)

 P&E Wing deals with the rise of the unsigned artist 

Interesting stuff from Digital Music News 

 Earfarm’s “80s TV Show Covers”

“Screwing with Bandmates” at Harmony Central Forums

Did Digi cook the results of “Can you hear a difference?”  at HarmonyCentral Forums

Listenerd is going pro.

NBC dumps Itunes and goes direct at Ad-supported Music Blog

I can’t believe I used to sell these guitars

I think these guys were trying to test the precision of the RANE faders coupled with serato Scratch…and were apparently pleased!

Download Synced DJs